Our today's guest is Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Neo. This time of year is usually full of special offers and although the phone costs a bit less than €250 in stores, we got it for €1 by signing a contract with our telco. We did our homework well and this was the way to go as the same deal that cost us €400 on the internet would cost €530 if we bought it from the store. Our readers from Austria should probably read this as we managed to get our mitts on Xperia Neo and Orange phone number with free internet access.

Xperia Neo is a midrange phone but offers most features users may need. In fact, finding a better phone in this class will be quite difficult. It looks quite attractive from the pictures but today we'll see how it fares in practice.

Almost all telcos in Austria ask for €50 for number activation, and Orange is no excuse. However, if you fill out the form on Orange's web portal yourself, which is obviously much easier, you can get away with not paying €50 for activation.

Orange won't give Xperia Neo for €1 if the program is less than €20 per month, but we found this a bit too pricey. Instead, we found a way to register for the €20 program and pay it €18. What you'll need is a nice little voucher that gives 10% discount to the basic monthly rates, and you can find it here.

However, we must admit that wouldn't have opted on Xperia Neo had we not seen that Orange is giving away free two-month subscription. This means that the Xperia Neo will cost you €400 over two years, coupled with 1,000 free minutes of conversation in all Austria's networks as well as free internet.

Although we could say that we were pleased with Xperia Neo in general, there are a few aspects where this phone falls short.

Xperia Neo measures 116 x 57 x 13 (LxWxH) so it's quite easy to handle. We had no issues using it with either hand and the curved edges make it quite a comfortable phone. The design may be a bit unusual, but we guess that's what makes it special.

We spent a lot of time lately using HTC's Titan, which has a 4.7'' screen. While the Titan sometimes required using both hands, everything on Xperia Neo can be done with one hand only.

Xperia Neo has a much smaller screen than HTC's Titan, but 3.7'' is enough for surfing, playing games, viewing pictures and movies, and such.

We can’t say we were blown away by picture quality but we weren’t disappointed either. Mobile Bravia Engine is in charge of the TFT display and it regulates colors, sharpness and contrast. We checked and without the Bravia engine, colors are indeed a bit paler.

Viewing angles are good enough to see the picture clearly, even when the phone is on the table and we’re looking at it from more than 45 degrees. Text is clearly displayed and although there’s plenty of glare, you can easily use the phone outside.

Sony Ericsson went for a plastic case that gave it a bit more freedom to experiment with design. However, we believe that the company was aware that using a plastic case does bring a few downsides with it.

Xperia Neo is a phone with a bit unconventional but comfortable design. However, once you hold it you'll feel the plastic, or to be more precise – you'll hear the plastics.

Namely, the right side, the one with the keys, is tougher than the left. The keys act as somewhat of a reinforcement for the plastics but since there are no keys on the left, the plastic is more prone to bending. You can see the left side on the picture below. When you squeeze the phone like on the picture above, you'll definitely hear it creak. Same goes for the right side of the phone although to a lesser extent.

While this may not be that tragic, it's definitely not something we expected when we bought the phone. Of course, that's not to say that we'll return the phone over this, but it's not nice hearing your phone squeak like a toy. We hope that the plastic will wear in after some time. Another problem of having a plastic case is that its dust magnet.

We really liked the color of the phone and once you look at the phone from the back, you’ll notice why they call it Blue Gradient (picture below). The blue color shows only when the phone reflects light, whereas weaker lighting results in the phone being black.

Xperia Neo has a screen with mineral glass which is scratch resistant. However, the screen gets dirty quickly and you can see fingerprints on the bezel. Unfortunately, cleaning screens is a common thing nowadays when using touch-screen devices.

Bottom of the phone has three classic hardware keys (back, home and menu) with appropriate symbols drawn on the bezel. Xperia’s logo is also painted rather than engraved.

One of two mics is on the bottom left. Sound quality is quite good with Xperia Neo and everyone heard us just fine. Sony Ericsson used two mics in Xperia Neo, where the second mic helps with noise removal.

The camera records clean sound, whether it is music or conversation, but we noticed that the recorded files always have a quiet but constant noise, even in almost noise free environments. The second microphone is on the back of the phone, near the camera. The larger hole on the bottom of the phone is the speaker hole.

You can turn the camera on via software controls, but there is also a hardware key for this purpose on the bottom right. The right side also holds the power key and volume control.

Xperia will shoot good videos at nighttime, thanks to a strong flash. The camera has auto-focus, which is started by a light push of the camera key. When you push the key all the way in, the photo is taken.

The pictures we took with Xperia Neo are good and while the colors are natural, contrast and sharpness are a bit lacking. Knowing that this is an 8.1 megapixel camera, we expected better. Of course, that’s not to say that the camera won’t do well in normal photographing scenarios, it’s just that you shouldn’t expect it to be of enough quality for printing posters or such. The camera can record in 720p.

Notice that the focused part of the picture is quite clear whereas the rest of the picture has more noise.

We noticed that photos look much better on Xperia Neo’s screen than when transferred to a computer, but that’s due to Mobile Bravia engine. This engine will improve contrast, perform noise reduction or sharpen photos.

The following photo shows that Bravia definitely instilled some life, color and contrast in the picture.

Users will easily reach settings once the camera is on. Sliding your finger towards the right will show various options for setting the camera (picture below), whereas sliding it towards the left will display the photo album.

Listing photos in the standard album is quite slow. Bravia engine additionally slows it down but at least picture quality is better. We waited about 2-3 seconds in average for the picture to load in full quality.

Many users will find that including a mini-HDMI out was a good idea. So, you can use Xperia Neo to play videos and display pictures on your TV, which is even better once you consider that not many phones in this class boast video outs.

Mini-HDMI and mini-USB connectors are on the top of the phone, and there’s also a 3.5mm audio out. Sony Ericsson ships in-ear earphones that, although good for listening to music, may not be a preferred solution for all users.

The battery can be changed and will last anywhere from one to three days, depending on usage of course.

The memory card can also be changed (32GB is maximum) and we must say it’s great that Sony Ericsson’s standard card is an 8GB one.

Smartphones with dual core CPUs are already on the market but single-cores will do more than fine for at least another year. Xperia Neo runs on Qualcomm’s single core MSM8255 at 1GHz with Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB of RAM. In general, the phone runs fine. We did see it stutter occasionally when going through menus and apps but you won’t see this while gaming or surfing. Playing HD video went without a hitch.

Xperia Neo is really well equipped and priced at €250 on the market. The phone runs Android 2.3 but will soon be running on Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

If you’re looking for a compact phone that allows for reading books and PDF files or surfing, we think that Xperia Neo’s 3.7’’ screen (480x854) will do just fine.

The phone’s performance is good enough for gaming as well, since no current games require dual core SoC to run normally. Xperia Neo runs on Qualcomm’s single core MSM8255 at 1GHz with Adreno 205 GPU.

Xperia Neo has two cameras. Thankfully there is a growing number of apps that allow for free video conversations on internet, and the front camera will come in pretty handy. Unfortunately, although the camera boast 8.1 megapixels, the photos are not as good as on more expensive phones with 8MP cameras. Xperia Neo boats mini-HDMI out so you can view photos or videos directly on your TV.

User’s will get an 8GB microSD card with the phone, but the capacity can be expanded up to 32GB. The battery is more or less standard and will run for a day if you surf and talks a lot, or up to three if you use the phone occasionally.

Xperia Neo’s design is a bit unusual but also very comfortable. The curved edges and the bottom of the phone look a bit strange on pictures, which is why we’d advise you to try it out for yourself before saying anything. We just hope that the feeling of cheap plastics won’t ruin the good impression of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Neo, as in truth – the phone is one of the better sub-€260 phones on the market.

Two insecurity experts have been showing off a technique which allows them to control a mobile phone anywhere in the world using SMS. Nico Golde and Collin Mulliner showed a video demonstration of phones from a wide range of manufacturers, including LG, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and others rebooting, freezing and generally acting flaky after receiving the crafted SMS messages.

The pair used the technique on feature phones, because feature phones still are far more prevalent in most of the world than smartphones are, so the target area is much larger. In a demonstration at CanSecWest the pair said that the attack did not need user interaction and the attacker can be anywhere in the world.

What they did was set up their own GSM network using a laptop running OpenBSC and targeted various phones that they purchased on eBay. These included a Nokia S40, a variety of LG handsets and Sony Ericsson devices. The messages they sent included a binary payload.

In most cases they could get the phone to reboot or freeze on a start-up screen. In one case they totally bricked a Sony Ericsson phone.

Sony Ericsson representatives have told us that the new Xperia Play will be one of the first phones to ship with Google's Android 2.4 operating system.

We played with the phone and we can tell you that the Playstation like controller works really well. It makes much more sense to play with it, than pressing a touch screen. The nice chap told us that Sony Ericsson wants to be the first with 2.4 as it has learned from its mistakes by taking too long to transition from Android 1.6 to 2.1 with previous Xperia series handsets.

This will change now and you can expect Android 2.4 on many new Xperia phones from day one. The chap said that the Xperia Play will ship in March in Europe, all depending on your mobile network provider. It looks like Sony Ericsson is definitely coming back to the fight, and the phone will ship with at least five games. Football and car games will be a priority.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone will arrive on Verizon first for those who want the PlayStation Phone in the U.S. While the device will be officially launched with a number of carriers worldwide in March, Verizon is only saying that they will have it available sometime in the early Spring.

The initial reaction to the first PlayStation Phone offering is mixed. It does seem that there is a lot of interest in the device, but it is difficult to say if that will be enough to propel sales with the amount of stiff competition that the device will have. Sony is claiming, however, that they will have 50 titles available for the device at launch which will turn some heads.

Analysts that we spoke with suggest that a lot will hinge on how good the Xperia Play is at being an actual smartphone, rather than a gaming device. As one analyst told us, “It will be important for the Xperia Play to be a solid and robust smart phone first that is full featured on these fronts, as many will want to sure that it can deliver this before even looking at the gaming abilities of the device.”

We tend to agree that the smartphone functionality will be important, but we suspect that because of the design of the device and its use of the Android OS, it should not be as much of a concern as some are thinking it could be. On the other hand, you just never know till you actually try it and see how it performs.

In a shockingly unsurprising announcement, Sony Ericsson told the world + dog that it would no longer develop Symbian phones.

“We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system,” a company spokesman told Bloomberg.

The company will obviously focus on Android in the future, although we wouldn’t bet against Windows Phone 7, either. Sony Ericsson has had several successful Windows based handsets in the past and it’s still sticking to the OS on a couple of high end phones.

As for Symbian, Sony Ericsson never really managed to outdo Nokia. It appears that the Vivaz series will be the end of the line for Symbian in SE’s offer.

It appears that Android’s lackluster showing in the field of gaming is set to change as Engadget reports that Sony Ericsson is on track to deliver an Android based gaming platform/smartphone.

The company is allegedly working around the clock on this “brand new gaming platform, ecosystem, and device”. The device is in the late stages of planning and possible cooperation with Google isn’t ruled out.

The device is said to be something like a Samsung Captivate meets PSP Go. It’s a landscape slider phone that will feature a D-pad and a long touch pad for analog controls. Naturally, standard PSP keys are there as well.

The display should be between 3.7 and 4.1 inches (WVGA or better) and the device should have a 5MP camera, although the latter is not yet a final spec. Reportedly, all this should run on a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.

The device is allegedly branded as Xperia, but we’ll probably see PlayStation branding as well. It will run on Android 3.0 Gingerbread, with further talk of possible Android Market for games and promises of actual 3D gaming on Android platforms.

Sony Ericsson has announced the Xperia X8, a sleek Android based smarphone that should perfectly fill the gap between the X10 and the outfit’s mid range phones.

However, unlike the X10 or the (over) simplified X10 mini, the X8 seems to be a much more sensible choice both in terms of the price and the spec. It should cost just under €200/$250, making it one of the cheapest Android phones on the market segment. Furthermore, it features an 3-inch 320x480 screen that sounds like a much better deal than the QVGA 320x240 unit found on the X10 mini.

However, there are also a couple of downsides. It runs Android 1.6, so users won’t be able to enjoy HTML 5 and some other features, such as Microsoft Exchange support. Still, at €200 it offers an affordable and stylish ticket to the Android world.